The room was imperfectly lighted with candles burning dimly, and a faint glow of firelight. "Susan!" cried the eager child's voice, with a weary echo of longing and disappointment. "Susan!--take me to Susan; she is not here." Then Dr. Rider led her round to the bedside, closely followed by the widow, and, lifting a candle, threw its light fully upon the stranger. "Is it Susan?" said the girl. "Will she not speak to me?--is she dead? Susan, oh Susan, Susan!" It was an outcry of childish impatience and despair, rising louder than any voice had risen in that room for many a day. Then she burst forth into tears and sobs. "Susan!--she will not speak to me, she will not look at me!" cried the stranger, drawing her arm out of the doctor's hold, and clasping her hands together. There was a slight movement in the bed; not the restless tossing with which her nurse was familiar, but a trembling shiver came over that dying frame. The sound had reached to the dull ears of the patient. She lifted her heavy eyelids, and looked round with half-awakened eyes. "Call her again, again!" said the doctor, in an intense whisper, which seemed to thrill through the room. The girl, who was engaged with a much more engrossing interest of her own, took no notice of the doctor. She knew nothing about Susan's danger--she was bent on gaining succour for herself. "Susan! tell her to look at me--at me! Susan! I care for nobody but you!" said the lovely helpless creature, with strange half-articulate cries, pressing closer to the bed. "You are to take care of me." Mrs. Vincent pressed forward with pangs of anxiety, of terror, of hope, and of a mother's tender jealousy through all, as these strange entreaties filled the room. She too cried aloud, as she perceived the awakening in that pallid face, the faint movement as if to raise herself up, which indicated a conscious effort on the part of Susan. The clouds were breaking on that obscured and hopeless firmament. The light, which trembled in the doctor's hand, caught a gleam of understanding and life in Susan's eyes, as her mother flew to raise her up, obeying the suggestion of that unhoped-for movement. "Susan! you said you would take care of me!" cried the young stranger, throwing herself upon the bedside and grasping at the weak arm which once had protected her. The touch of her hands awoke the slumbering soul. Slowly the light grew in Susan's eyes. She who had not moved for days except in the restless tossings of languor, lifted those white feeble arms to put them round the appealing child. Then Susan struggled up, faint, yet inspired, unconscious of her mother's help that enabled her to do so, and confronted the strange people in her room, whom she had seen for weeks past, but did not know, with living eyes. "Nobody shall touch her--we will protect each other," said the voice that had grown strange even to her mother's ears. Mrs. Vincent could hardly be restrained from breaking in with a thousand